Russian Federation and the United Kingdom have separately appraised Bangladesh about the alleged poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal.

A senior diplomat at the British high commission in Dhaka informed the foreign ministry on March 15 that Sergei Skripal, now a British citizen, and Yulia, a Russian national, were poisoned in Salisbury of England with a chemical applied as nerve agent.

The British diplomat talked to the Bangladesh side a day after the UK accused the Russian Federation on March 14 of the attack.

The UK, in the meeting, requested the Bangladesh authorities to use their good office for playing a neutral role as the current chair of the Executive Council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons of the UN. 

Bangladesh ambassador to the Netherlands Sheikh Mohammed Belal is the current chairperson of the OPCW, a The Hague-based intergovernmental organisation and the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention of the UN. 

Russian embassy in Dhaka, in a diplomatic note delivered to the foreign ministry on March, claimed innocence of the country in the alleged chemical attack on Sergei and Yulia.

Russia alleged that it sought information and proof directly from the British authorities about the basis of allegations made about the attack.

The Russian note also claimed that it requested the British side for providing proof through OPCW. 

When contacted over phone from Dhaka about the matter, OPCW chair Belal told New Age that ‘OPCW is a fully technical body which has no relations with geo-political affairs.’ 

More than 100 Russian diplomats have faced expulsions on Monday across Europe and North America in response to the alleged poisoning. 
Sergei and Yulia were undergoing treatment in a critical condition in a UK hospital. 

Bangladesh is an inaugural signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, which is a global disarmament agreement that bans production, storage and development of chemical weapons.